Wednesday, October 12, 2011

A Glimpse Into My Soul. I'm Really Sorry.

There are days when I'm not just hahaha that's kind of wrong worried about myself, but days when I am really, truly, legitimately worried that there is something completely fucked in the head about me.

For example, yesterday I was driving home from work. Now, because I have crippling panic attacks when I drive on the freeway, I take lesser roads where I need to go. So I'm on this road and I come to a point where it's blocked by a police car and a fire truck. And instead of evincing even the slightest concern about what could have happened to warrant this blockade, I start swearing. A lot. About fucking cuntrag assholes and their stupid bullshit fire truck and what the fuck is wrong with people? Goddamn pieces of shit.

So I detour. And end up on a road that's been closed off by construction. I backtrack and am stuck in traffic, hating everyone so much that I'm honest to god SCREAMING in my car in frustration and rage and self-loathing [why the fuck can't I be normal and just get on the goddamn freeway already and not be a tool?], and I'm sure that all the people walking can probably hear me because I don't think my car is sound proofed. But I don't care, because I hate them, too, and I'm kind of hoping someone gives me a look, because I will get out of my car and chew up their faces. But they don't. Maybe they can sense the swirl of crazy, like when you know a tornado is coming.

And I have to detour again and get stuck at a construction point where a person with one of those STOP signs is standing and so I'm stopped because for who knows what reason, every truck that is involved in paving this ten foot long spot of two lane road [and for some reason there are, no fucking lie, 6 trucks and about 20 people patching a path that is shorter than my driveway] [and my driveway is not long] has to move to the other side of the road. Do you know how long that takes? SO LONG! So long that I actually started crying - great, big, hulking sobs of anger and despair, and also screaming curses at fate and the idiot people walking by and the whole stupid world.

I finally got the wave to go and you know what? The idiot sign holder on the other side waved their person through, so I had to BACK UP and wait for this prick to go through. I cannot explain to you with mere words the black anger that filled me. It tasted like chicken.

I finally got home and ended up talking to a friend, which was helpful, but I just get so tired, sometimes, of my inability to deal. It exhausts me.

18 comments:

That kind of sounds like a giant panic attack - I've had that happen and it is NOT cool. Back in college someone was fooling around and invaded my personal space kind of...personally. It should have been mildy irritating, but it triggered this volcanic explosion of anger in me. Totally freaked me out (mostly b/c I'd just been in an abnormal psych class talking about how schizophrenia shows up a lot during the college years).

Went straight to mental health, convinced I was turning into one of those homeless women who mutter to themselves. Found out...nope. I had a panic attack. Panic attack triggered fight or flight, and my brain pick FIGHT. Yea for me?

It's happened a couple of times since, but thankfully not often. Hubby saw the explosion (we were just friends then), and yet still married me. I'm thinking that might actually make him crazier than me.

I think it sounds like you are dealing, but yeah, the need to deal is exhausting!

I have had bouts like this. Almost as if a crazy me invades my body and normal me is sitting off on the sidelines going, "wow, she's f-ed up." And I can do nothing to get crazy me out and normal, rational me back in my body. See, just saying that sounds nuts. But there it is. Sigh. Hope today is better.

I do the same (without the fear of driving on Teh Freeway, though I live in an area that "Freeway" is a place with more lanes and the same amount of traffic as everywhere else) . . . I go apeshit when I can't figure out why I'm being stopped for something.

Then I realize that the traffic is so backed up because of a fatal accident involving a schoolbus full of blind kids and the guide-kittens they were training, and then I hate myself all the more. But, I still let the rage fly out of me.

I have done that more times than I care to remember. I always attributed it to road rage. I was recently upped a dose on my meds so I'm hoping it helps with my car anger since I'm driving to West Virigina to visit my son in college.

I did that. I still do that. The thing is, with our lives today; the economy, the drive to "have", the simple knowledge that our pace of life today drives us to the breaking point ... In the last 3 years I've lost everything. EVERYTHING, including a brother to suicide. I've come to the realization that I took on too much. I've realized it's OK, to have my kids get shit grades, it's OK to not do everything expected of me, or to tell the PTA president to fuck off, and it's OK to live life at a slower pace than everyone else.The rage can still surface, but I take medication for it, and I have no problem admitting that. But it doesn't happen anywhere near as much. At this point I figure everything has a reason. Maybe I'm being held up by 5 fucking school busses that stop at every goddamn mailbox because if I wasn't, maybe I would be on a collision course with some drunk driver, or worse, some holier-than-thou Prius driver in their fucking "I'm so environmentally pc that I eat my own shit" car.You aren't crazy, your human, and life has gotten far more complicated than our primordial little brains can handle, so we implode.My advice: take more time off. Play hooky. PLAY. Dress like a bum every Tuesday. Eat cheesecake, and the next time your stuck in traffic, crank up some ABBA (or Prince. Maybe AC/DC - Whatever drives your backside to jigglin'.) and seat dance until you turn that intersection into an Austin Powers dance number.YEAH BABY!

I guess I'm as screwed up as you are because I don't see anything wrong with your behavior. My attitude towards any stoppage in traffic is the ONLY acceptable excuse is fatalities. Plural. Beyond that you are just trying to fuck with my head and there will be consequences.

When I was younger I used to get really, really mad at stupid stuff. Then I listened to some self help tape (not because I was that kind of a person, but because I had to for work and I was getting quizzed one on one by my boss, so I couldn't lie about having listened to them)..anyway..I actually learned a trick from it (the only thing I remember that I use to this day).

So here it is, hope it helps:

When you find yourself winding up and getting really mad, whether it is traffic, or a long line at a grocery store, or whatever, do this: Rate your reaction to the situation on a scale of 1 to 10. 10 being the worst possible reaction to the worse possible situation. Then examine it and decide if your reaction number is appropriate for the actual situation.

So for example, if I am standing in line at the library waiting to check out a book and some nitwit can't find his library card, and my anger starts to build, I stop myself and think am I really going to react with an 8, when the situation clearly deserves a 3?

For some reason, that really works for me and I can automatically calm down. Maybe because I am forced to analyze an emotion. Either way, I acknowledge I am annoyed and then decide that I am not going to let my annoyance get the best of me.

First, you didn't hurt anybody. That's good. Second, it sounds like you have a huge amount of stress in your life OR you have unresolved anger OR both. If you didn't let those feelings out, your head would explode. I'm also pretty sure that is why firetrucks and police cars are blocking traffic all the time, they're cleaning out the remains. You are surviving. That's a good thing.And although I feel bad that you felt so bad, I laughed my ass off at this post because you have immense writing skills and a fabulous sense of humor...unless you weren't trying to be funny, in which case, I'm just sorry you were feeling so bad.